Thursday, July 12, 2007

Today, like everyday for the past two months, I sat down to my computer to scour the news for Ron Paul stories. I am what you call, a 'Ron Paul Junkie'. This is my first blog, ever- and I want to address the surge of Ron Paul support as of very recent.

Ed Failor, the Iowans for Tax Relief representative who dismissed Ron Paul as not being viable and failed to invite him to the debate in Des Moines in early July, has just announced that he is jumping ship from the McCain campaign following reports that one of McCain's key staffers was arrested for soliciting a hooker at a city park which he helped build. (I didn't even know Failor was supporting McCain). Apparently, the Republican Senator's campaign is going broke and many of his staff have either quit or have been fired in the past week.

This pushes McCain out of the top-tier and puts Ron Paul in the top three. The trickle of mainstream media coverage has been growing steadily and will continue to grow as the scandals around the McCain and Giuliani campaigns continue to tarnish their public image. (And to think we still have 16 months to go...)

So, after watching every single Ron Paul video on Youtube and reading every blog and news article worth mentioning, I feel pretty certain that the odds are getting much better for Dr. Paul. His popularity is surging exponentially and isn't showing any signs of tapering off in the near future.

Announcements of his campaign funds and results of the Ames, Iowa Straw Poll will be a benchmark I certainly look forward to. In the meantime, I plan to continue what I'm doing, which is tell everyone I know about Ron Paul. This has worked GREAT so far. Friends, family, co-workers and strangers are all being turned on to Dr. Paul's message just by initiating conversation:

"Have you heard of Ron Paul?""Who?""He's running for President in 2008.""Oh.""He wants to pull our troops out of Iraq immediately.""That's cool.""He wants to abolish the IRS.""What? Who is he?""He's all over the internet, Google, Youtube- check him out.""What's his name again?""Ron Paul."

Typical conversation I have about 10 times a day. But the cool thing is, almost EVERYBODY comes to me in the next couple of days and tells me they watched him on Youtube or read about him on Google and they like his message and are usually surprised they haven't heard of him before. At that point, I ask them if they are thinking about voting for him, which more often than not I hear "Yeah, either him or Obama". At that point, I let them know that Obama is a member of the CFR and they give me a blank stare or a look of bewilderment.

So, the Ron Paul surge is about talking to friends and family EVERY DAY. Encourage them without being argumentative or forceful. Keep in mind how you would feel if someone was trying to do the same thing to you. Respect each other.